


Expectations

by Grimmseye



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/M, Hints at Entrapta's past, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Protective Hordak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24504238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmseye/pseuds/Grimmseye
Summary: That was unrelated to the situation at hand. Extraneous data, things that didn’t need to be considered for this particular conundrum. The problem was that at the end of the almost-end of the world, Princess Entrapta was meant to become the Queen of Dryl.Writing prompt from tumblr: "Entrapta starting to feel so much pressure from everyone in her kingdom that she breaks down crying. I could see hordak snarling at her subject and/or hug her to his chest until she calms down some"
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 330





	Expectations

Politics had never been Entrapta’s _thing._ Way back when, her parents programmed a pair of AIs to mimic their own decision making process, and the small nation of Dryl was left to it after their demise. Princess Entrapta had never learned their laws, or the law-making process, or the judiciary system, or really anything that princesses were allegedly _supposed_ to do. There were the bots and there was probably a council of living people to account for those they represented, and Entrapta had never been informed if there was a problem with that. 

Apparently, sometime after joining with the Horde, the AIs had been dismantled. A part of her grieved them, the last pieces of her biological parents. The ones she’d constructed were destroyed in a lab accident years ago, at an age where she’d realized she didn’t need robots to read her stories or carry her to bed and tuck her in at night. At a certain point, their doting had become counterproductive to her projects, and just being able to pace herself as she pleased was best.

That was unrelated to the situation at hand. Extraneous data, things that didn’t need to be considered for this particular conundrum. The problem was that at the end of the almost-end of the world, Princess Entrapta was meant to become the Queen of Dryl. 

Her return from Beast Island came sooner than she appreciated,  _ frankly.  _ She and Hordak had been doing important work in determining what could be salvaged and what needed to be  _ completely and mercilessly destroyed.  _ They had fun, competing to design the most effective form of annihilation, factoring in environmental impact  _ and  _ showmanship. When the others came to visit, they’d take them up to the best viewpoint to watch as a pile of First Ones’ tech was dissolved in flashing, multicolored flames and spiraling rockets that burst in the sky.

And then the message from Dryl arrived. 

Hordak was granted temporary leave from his duties, as Entrapta  _ required  _ her lab partner’s presence, no matter how much people grumbled about his tyranny. And besides, he’d never actually seen her original lab. She was sure he’d appreciate the complexity of the Crypto Castle, though perhaps not the inability to  _ navigate  _ it. The Fright Zone, by contrast, had an efficient layout despite its daunting appearance. 

Their ship, reconstructed from salvaged materials and her understanding of Darla, shot over the restored lands of Etheria. Biology wasn’t  _ really  _ her field of interest, but she just may have to take a step into it as she gawked at the creatures below. So many new beasties had woken up with the restoration of magic. The First Ones’ designs especially made her eyes shine, as they were a fascinating splice between the biological and mechanical, which provided all kinds of resources to study with regards to neural integration that could revolutionize prosthetics — 

“ — and it’s really a shame that all of Horde Prime’s data got trashed in the final battle but between you and Kadroh I’m  _ sure  _ I can figure out how you integrated ports into your central nervous system.” As she spoke, Entrapta poked Hordak in the back, in the space between those ports. The skin surrounding them was sensitive, according to him.

Hordak’s brow scrunched. He just tended to do that, whenever Kadroh came up. The whole  _ Wrong Hordak  _ thing hadn’t exactly been well received, but she propped herself up on her pigtails to smooth out the crease with her thumb. “Can I? Study you?” she asked, giving him an enormous grin.

Hordak stared at her, his expression flat but his silence telling. From him, the lack of a  _ no  _ meant that — “I suppose that would be fine. Though I would have thought with as much poking around as you do, you would have already figured that out.” 

“Not at  _ all!”  _ She gushed. “I’ve only collected sufficient data on how they integrate with your  _ armor,  _ but I haven’t even scratched the  _ surface  _ of what it does with your  _ body.  _ Once I figure that out I could make further improvements to your exoskeleton to boost its sensitivity — I really am going to have to start picking up biology at this rate,  _ hmmm.”  _ She drew her feet up, hair forming a cushion under her legs. 

Hordak gave a huff, but she knew he would say something if it actually upset him. 

As the first peaks of Dryl’s mountains came into view, their conversation quieted. Most of the nation was formed from spread-out mining operations, the towns reliant on their dig sites. She vaguely remembered issuing money out wherever a dig produced something new and interesting to study, skimming the details to skip right to the good part before authorizing the transfer. Her bots took care of the rest. 

Her bots had taken care of most things, before she joined the Horde. It had been a rougher transition than she liked to let on, moving into those sprawling halls. 

Entrapta felt Hordak come up beside her at the window, peering down as well. His presence helped soothe her nerves. The Fright Zone had been a home to her, but it only  _ really  _ became that once they started working together. “Tell me about this place,” he said. 

Entrapta faltered. “It’s — well Dryl is one of the smallest kingdoms in Etheria, but we built it right on top of a First Ones’ hot zone! Most of it is ore mining — iron and adamantine and such, but on occasion we’d pull up First Ones’ tech, like that chip that infected Adora’s sword!” 

A smile crossed his face. “That’s why you were so familiar with First Ones’ technology,” he observed. 

“Yep!” She plastered on a smile of her own without real enthusiasm.

The silence stretched out, longer than she thought it was supposed to. Or maybe  _ he  _ was just thinking. It was nothing, probably. She was just getting into a tizzy over nothing. 

Hordak cleared his throat. “What was… growing up here like? I know that the Horde did not take interest in your kingdom until you… fell into our grasp. A critical error on my part, though perhaps one made for the best.” 

Entrapta could recognize his attempt to compliment her and apologize all at once. Hordak was weird like that, but at least he didn’t act other than how he felt. People would say they weren’t upset when they were, and seemed to expect her to figure out the truth. It was nice, having someone who meant what they said, even if she had to dig a bit to find its meaning. 

“Entrapta?”

“Huh?” She blinked, tearing her gaze from the window. 

Hordak was frowning at her. “You didn’t answer the question.” 

“Uhhhh.” As he opened his mouth to repeat himself, she burst out, “ _ Oh  _ right! Yeah, it was  _ great!”  _ And she got to launch into all the intricacies she’d installed in the Crypto Castle, uncertain why he was frowning through it. As the castle itself came into view she squealed her excitement, tugging on Hordak’s arm and pointing, shouting, “There it is, see!” 

She watched him from the corner of her vision, how his frown lingered on her before he slowly turned his gaze to the window. 

The ship banked down, landing rougher than she would like, but all things had their quirks. They were in one piece and that meant flight was a success. She hopped down the ramp, taking in a lungful of the air, the scent of metal and dust tasting of home. 

They’d landed upon the cliffs above her old castle, and Hordak strolled to the edge to look down upon it. “This is an impressive fortress,” he commented, smiling. “Sturdy walls, even from above its navigational system is unintuitive. Excellent design. Where is the way down?”

“Right here!” Entrapta scooped him up with her hair pulling him over the edge of the cliff. He shouted as she cackled, her hair catching in rungs she’d bolted into the cliff, too far apart for any humanoid arm span but perfect for the length of her pigtails. She pushed off the rock to land on the bridge that connected her tower, only to drop again and corkscrew down its support and onto a rooftop. 

She spun Hordak into her arms, dancing him around as she laughed. “That was fun! I haven’t  _ ever  _ brought another person with me!” 

His ears were waggling in the way they did when he was dizzy — recalibrating the bit of the inner ear that handled balance, she was sure.  _ “Warn _ me, next time,” he snapped. Even when he got short with her, he didn’t shout and roar like he used to. Softening, Hordak looked aside and added, “But yes. It was.  _ Fun.”  _

She cackled and took his hand. “Let me show you around!” Her hair grabbed a hatch in the roof to pull it open and swing them inside, another lock grabbing her pad to pull up a map of the labyrinth. There was so much he had to see. 

  
  
  


Her old lab was in a sorry state. Entrapta had almost completely cleaned it out when she was moving into the Fright Zone, and now she had to frown at the disconcerting sight of an uncluttered workbench. 

“This is way more disappointing than I thought,” she stated, hands on her hips. Her voice rose into a loud groan, lamenting, “I wanted to show you  _ my  _ cool lab!” 

When she sighed and looked at him, she found his eyebrows raised. Entrapta gave a bashful laugh. “When I heard your lab was called your  _ sanctum,  _ I thought it was classy.” She rubs the toe of her boot on the ground, smiling up at him with a blush. Truth be told, she’d gotten a  _ little  _ bit of a crush on him the same day she’d entered his lab. He called it a sanctum and hoarded tech and knowledge of the likes she’d never dreamed of, it was impossible  _ not  _ to get the butterflies. 

It makes him smile, a hand lifting. “I am certain that —” 

A sharp  _ blip!  _ Interrupts him. The smile vanishes, turning to glower at her pad. Entrapta taps the notification, pulling up a video of a balding man in a spiffy-looking suit. 

“Your highness!” The man exclaimed. She saw his eyes flit, how he gave a start when he noticed Hordak at her side. “And — and — o-oh my.” 

Hordak growled until Entrapta pushed him away with her hair. “Hello!” She chirped. “Who are you?”

“I — you don’t —?” He frowned, then shook his head. “Nevermind. I am councilman Wren!” 

“Uh-huh.”

“I… am the head of the Council of Dryl?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I and the other council members are meant to have a meeting with you, today.”

“Uh-huh.” 

“... Could you tell us how to get inside?”

Entrapta gasped.  _ “Oh!”  _ She clapped her hands, squeaking in delight when one of the dusty bots animated. “Go show them inside. Bring them here!  _ No!  _ Bring them to the dining room! Do we have a dining room?” The bot nodded. “Bring them to the dining room! And then bring tiny snacks! From the ship!” 

“Your Highness —” 

She closed the video feed.

For a long moment, Entrapta stared at the black screen. Then she realized she was being stared  _ at,  _ and looked up to see Hordak’s red eyes fixed on her. 

Feeling self-conscious, she hunched her shoulders up. “What?”

Hordak blinked. “Nothing,” he claimed. Then, pausing, corrected, “It is strange to hear them address you in that way.” When Entrapta only cocked her head, he said, “ _ Your Highness. _ At times I forget…” 

“That I’m a princess?” Her mood plummeted. “I’m  _ not,  _ really. It’s just a title.” 

She hugged herself with one arm, holding onto her own bicep as she shuffled out of the room, the pad guiding them to the dining room she apparently had. Behind her, Hordak stammered through several false starts, never getting more than a word out. 

  
  
  


Entrapta didn’t recognize  _ any  _ of these people. Not their faces, not their names. They all bowed and offered a hand, and only stared at her when she gave them a lock of hair.  _ Bow  _ had kissed it, she remembered, with a pang of first intense fondness and then disappointment. She wished her friends were here. Not because Hordak wasn’t enough, but because the others made it  _ better.  _

They sat around a rectangular dining table, as the bots brought out the tiny cupcakes and fizzy drinks she’d stored in the ship. Not a single member of the council touched their food, and even though she had no qualms with popping the sweets into her mouth and lounging in her seat, she couldn’t shake the distinct sensation that she was doing something  _ wrong.  _

They’d been droning on about  _ something  _ for way too long. She’d broken out her tool kit to start fixing up the bot’s blinky eye, mask snapped over her face and hair bristling with tools. These old things were charmingly dated compared to what she’d been working with. Not  _ obsolete,  _ she only scrapped things when they could no longer go on, just adorably simple in their design. Hordak had introduced her to a  _ world  _ of new ideas, one that was only expanding with each day — 

_ “Princess Entrapta!”  _

The sudden snap made her jerk upwards, yelping as she rapped her knuckles against the metal eye socket. 

She looked up, searching for the speaker but only finding Hordak glaring across the table.  _ “Lower. _ Your. Voice,” He growled, and Entrapta found Councilman Spanner shrinking in his chair. In a steadier tone, Hordak looked to her, asking, “Princess Entrapta, what  _ are  _ your thoughts regarding the deconstruction of Horde Prime’s spire in Dryl?”

The title gave her pause. He  _ never  _ used her title that way. A derogatory  _ princess  _ at times — though these days it was teasing — but the sound  _ Princess Entrapta  _ was alien in his voice. She kind of liked it. And she  _ really  _ liked him. 

She curled a lock of hair around his ankle, squeezing it in thanks. “The spire, right!” She chirped. “We are  _ absolutely  _ gonna salvage everything we can. First Ones’ tech is advanced but what Prime was using exceeds even their sophisticated designs. The code they were working with was practically a living creature, it was constantly adapting itself, building and breaking its defenses to an  _ almost  _ unpredictable degree, but as you know  _ true  _ randomness cannot be achieved by —” 

_ “Anyway,”  _ Councilwoman — Bradawl? — Bradawl cut her off, leaving Entrapta to deflate. “Who are you placing in charge of this project? Who are they hiring? How will they be paid? What precautions should they be taking?” 

“Uh — uhm,” Entrapta raised a hand, but another voice piped up. 

“In addition to that,” Councilwoman Pliyer stood up, hands planted on the table, “What of the towns that were destroyed in Prime’s attack? The refugees in the cities? All of our most critical mines were commandeered in the attack and may be too dangerous to allow citizens to return to work, how do you intend to restore them to functionality?”

“I’m — hold on —” 

“We cannot hold on,  _ Your Highness.”  _ It was Councilman Wren again, voice nervous as he wrung his hands. “I understand you are not suited to this job but the unfortunate fact remains that you are the  _ only  _ heir to the throne of Dryl and without the programs the former king and queen left behind, their responsibilities fall to you.” 

A cold chill poured under her skin. Entrapta hugged herself, hands rubbing up and down her own arms. 

“Your Highness,” Bradawl said, “If I may be frank?” She stared at Entrapta, waiting until she got a nod. “You have not made the best decisions for Dryl in the past —” Her eyes spanned to Hordak, “ — and your citizens lack faith in you. I believe that you must focus on rebuilding your image, while  _ we _ make sure the cogs are turning smoothly.” She let the words settle.

Entrapta didn’t know what she’d expected to get out of this. She slumped into her seat, staring at her knees. Her nails bit into her skin, dragging scratches up and down her biceps. 

“With all due respect, Princess, I would recommend that you cede these decision-making promises to us — your council — and that  _ you _ fulfill your duty as the figurehead of Dryl.” Bradawl was smiling, now, voice smooth as silk. “After all, it is hardly as though you were their ruler in the past. There is no need for us to throw Dryl into further turmoil —” 

“That is  _ enough!”  _

Hordak was on his feet, slamming his hands down on the table. The council silenced, all eyes on him. Even Entrapta stared. His image was blurred by tears she was barely holding back, but she could see him  _ shaking,  _ the snarl of his teeth, ears pinned back in fury. “Shut your pathetic mouths at once,” he spat. “If I hear another word from you I just may elect to put your tongues to better use as  _ slop _ for the worms! You. Will.  _ Not  _ disrespect Princess Entrapta in this way. Now be  _ silent,  _ and  _ remove yourselves  _ from her castle at  _ once.”  _

There was quiet. Then, Spanner squeaked, “But what of Dryl —” 

Hordak roared and smashed his hand into the table. His claws tore through its cloth and into the wood, splintering around his fingers. The man went pale as the others scrambled to their feet, making a hasty exit without so much as a bot to guide them. 

“Send your requests by message. I see no need for Her Highness to endure the sickness of hearing your voice.” Looming over Spanner, Hordak sent him one scampering for the door. He remained poised over the table — over  _ her  _ — breathing hard and growling with every breath. 

Entrapta burst into tears. 

It welled up too quickly for her to stop, the tears pouring down her face and sobs hitching in her throat. Hordak was there in an instant, snarling violence replaced with a gentle yet faltering voice. “En… Entrapta.” 

Embarrassment flushed her skin, and she reached up to pull her mask over her face. Delicate fingers stopped her, before Hordak spoke again, sounding more certain: “May I hold you?” 

She had to consider it before nodding. Touch was good today. He lifted her into his arms and sank into the chair, holding her in his lap. His claws combed through her hair, awkward at first but gaining a smoother rhythm. 

“Do you…” He trailed off. “Want soup?” 

It caught her so off guard that Entrapta started snort-laughing through her tears. His face went red, ears leveling, his face caught in such goofy embarrassment that she could only laugh harder. 

“You said it makes you feel better!” He growled, defensive. Even the fingers in her hair felt petulant. 

Entrapta sniffed, then pressed a kiss to his cheek. “It does, thank you,” she smiled. It crumpled in an instant, the good feelings draining away. “I’m just — they’re  _ right,  _ though.” 

“ _ How  _ are they right?” Hordak glowered at the door they’d run through. “Nothing they said indicated they possessed the brain cells required for critical thought.”

“I’m  _ really  _ not meant for this,” she said. Entrapta arranged herself more comfortably, sitting sideways across his lap, her temple leaned into his shoulder. “I didn’t learn how to be a princess. I’m just going to mess everything up if I try. And I don’t —!” She sat upright, stopped, and slumped against him again. Quieter, she finished, “I don’t even  _ want  _ to do this. I don’t know why I’m all in a tizzy about it.” 

“They were disrespectful,” Hordak insisted. “If ruling is not a position you want, we can figure it out together. Perhaps with… the other princesses.” It came out begrudgingly, and she had to smile. She knew he still felt strange around them. Hordak sighed, then nuzzled into her hair. “We will figure it out. But anyone who attempts to undermine you  _ will  _ be  _ crushed.  _ … In a nonlethal manner.” 

The disappointment in his voice made her break into giggles. She slid her arms around his shoulders, content to just be held for a little while longer. They would figure it out together in time. That was what lab partners were for. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! This is my first She-ra fic. After watching the series finale I remembered just how fantastic Entrapdak is and asked for some writing prompts. You can find me as Grimmseye on tumblr.


End file.
